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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Banana Tea Bread

Easy to make and satisfying to taste, these tea breads will fill the house with the aroma of baking. Time it to the arrival of your guests when you entertain!

First attempt - dry and crumbly and bit too dense.

Much better when I split the batter into 2 loaf tins. Now it's soft and moist and looks like the one from SwissBake. The aroma fills the whole house!

Ingredients:

3 very ripe medium size bananas peeled

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup or 125g butter or margarine softened (get one stick of butter from the stores and you don't have to measure)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup chopped nuts optional (dry-fried almond flakes yum!)

1 cup fresh or unthawed frozen blueberries optional (another yum!)

Method

Position oven rack on middle rung. Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly spray the bottom of one 9x5 inch or two 8x4 inch loaf pan with non stick spray.

In a medium bowl, mash the bananas with a masher until well mashed.

In a large bowl, sitr the sugar and butter with a whisk or wooden spoon until well mixed.

Stir in the eggs until mixture is well blended. Add mashed bananas, milk, vanilla and mix with a spoon until smooth and well blended.

Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened and combined.

Stir in the nuts or blueberries (or both!).

Spread the batter into the large loaf pan or divide evenly between the 2 smaller pans smoothing out the top of the batter.

Bake the small pans for about an hour and the large pan about 1 hr 15. Do toothpick test. You're done if toothpick or satay stick comes out clean. (I read somewhere the best test is using an uncooked spaghetti stick. If it breaks, the bread is not ready. I haven't tried this though and would be interested to hear from anyone who has.)

Remove from oven and cool for 10 min on wire rack. Loosen the sides of bread from the pan with a butter knife or metal spatula. Carefully tip the bread out and place top side up on the rack to cool completely. Wrap tightly and store at room temp for up to 4 days and in fridge for up to 10.